Leaders Need to Maintain a Balance Between Mission and Community Post #3

 

Why this Balance Matters

Over 50 years ago, I attended a “Human Relationship Lab.” I was a senior in seminary, and I had been introduced to these gatherings by one of our professors. The basic premise of the labs was to combine experience in a group with observations about group behavior especially as it related to leadership.

One observation in this session was both simple and profound. It has stayed with me all these years and I have used the principle on many occasions. The facilitator drew on newsprint a straight line and then added two words:

                             Task_____________________Community                                                   

 Here is the rule. Leaders need to tend to two dynamics to maintain a healthy community. The first is task. The second is community life. Simple right? Now comes the profound part. When these dynamics become unbalanced, too focused on task or too focused on community, the group becomes unhealthy. Today we would use the word “dysfunctional.”

Over my years as a Rector, a Canon in a diocese, and a consultant to churches, I have seen lots of dysfunctional behavior in congregations. It often occurs when one of these two dynamics becomes over emphasized. When I observed such churches, I found that the leaders were not attending to this balance and were dealing with issues, not by trying to balance these, but by putting even more energy in their preferred dynamic. As a consultant, I would make recommendations to restore the balance. When applied, this always helped create a healthier community that was better able to accomplish its purpose. When ignored often conflict emerged.

Add to this that each of these two dynamics can be both healthy and unhealthy. For example, take the clergy person who believes the congregation needs to build a new worship space. In order to accomplish this task, it is necessary to raise money. The leader now takes every opportunity to hammer away at the need for people to give. The result is that members start saying things like, “The church is always asking for money.” This complaint is code language for “we are not feeling a part of this community.” Perhaps what was not being attended to was the need for members to fully own the decision. 

Back then, an expression that I used with leaders was that “Baby Boomers and GenXers think that any decision made without them involved, even if seems a good one to the leaders, was bad. That was important because the GI generation mostly trusted their leaders’ decisions, but the boomer generation did not! This generational shift in our society was a major issue for churches in the latter part of the 21st century.

The problem on the other side of the balance, community life, can be seen in several ways. First, the tighter the relationships become, the more difficult it is to include new people. New people see a self-described “friendly congregation,” as often made up of people who stand around at the coffee hour talking to each other while ignoring the visitors.

In the wider Episcopal Church in recent days the emphasis on “The beloved Community” carries that risk. If a group puts all its energy into relationships within the group, it can be unhealthy. In our church, which puts much emphasis on learning to love one another and reconciliation, this emphasis runs the risk of focusing too much on the present group’s relationships. The task then must become balancing our communities with a healthy understanding of the task of making new disciples.

Another example of see too much emphasis on communing is to imagine what happens if one of the leaders of a community comes from a dysfunctional family or is addicted to some substance. Then it is easy for the whole church “family” to become dysfunctional. This is a particular problem in our smaller churches, and we have lots of them. The solution would be balanced by greater emphasis on the church’s task or mission. 

My former Bishop, Claude Payne, underscored this with his description of the Church’s two core values which are The Great Commission to make disciples and The Great Commandment to love one another. He would point out that maintaining a healthy balance between these two core values is a continual work of a congregation’s leadership both ordained and lay.

I would add this observation. A community that puts all its emphasis on itself is best defined as a cult. One that puts too much emphasis on the task is a corporation not a community.

How are your leaders doing at maintaining this healthy balance? What strategies might accomplish this? This model remains a basic tool in developing strategies aimed at health.